Queensland's Liberal National government toasted its controversial "adult crime, adult time" laws after police data revealed a victim reduction.
Compared to the same time last year, data released last week claimed the state's crime victim numbers per capita were down 10.8 per cent.
However, on Wednesday the police minister apologised in parliament, revealing the actual reduction was 6.5 per cent.
Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski was also apologetic and blamed human error.
But the incident has sparked calls for more transparency from the government.
"Because we have a government elected on the basis of tough on crime laws, it is vital we have an accurate depiction of what's actually going on," Youth Advocacy Centre chief executive Katherine Hayes told AAP.
"It is not good enough to put out incorrect statistics and then apologise.
"What we need is a full, clear, transparent analysis of exactly what is going on."
The LNP campaigned hard on crime during a successful 2024 election run, with Premier David Crisafulli vowing to stand down if victim numbers did not drop in Queensland.
The government promptly introduced the controversial legislation in which children as young as 10 are subject to the same maximum sentence as adults for a range of serious crimes, leading to criticism from human rights advocates.
Ms Hayes accused governments of cherry picking their data and called for the LNP to provide a more nuanced breakdown in future.
"Police data that is released is a huge spreadsheet with hundreds of columns, you can spend hours going through it," she said.
Ms Hayes said her group went through state police data months ago and found Queensland crime overall was going down but was on the rise in regional areas like Townsville, Cairns and Mount Isa.
"There is a more nuanced picture. In regions there's a crisis of domestic and family violence, probably family breakdown, that's leading to increases in crime," she said.
"It's much more complex than election campaigns make out."
Police Minister Dan Purdie said analysis methods and processes would be examined and improved ahead of next month's crime data report.
"The 6.5 per cent reduction is still showing we are moving in the right direction, but there is still much more work to be done," he said.
However opposition leader Steven Miles took aim at the premier over his "dodgy victim data".
"Instead of fulfilling his promise, Premier Crisafulli has been fiddling with the figures."
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